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User blog:BeastMan14/Logan Review: A Masterful Send-Off For Hugh Jackman
Hugh Jackman (and Patrick Stewart) make their final appearances as the characters they've helped define in James Mangold's R-rated Logan. But is it a fitting sendoff for these two legends? Good god, is it ever. Logan isn't just far and away the best X-Men film, it's just an excellent film, period. The Cast Logan's supporting cast is uniformly excellent, but that would fall flat were it not for the incredible final performances of Jackman and Stewart. As a beaten and aging Logan, Jackman lets decades of grief and defeat spill out over every scene. You really get the sense from every scene that any fight Logan ever had has long since left him, and he's just...finished. As a counterpoint, Stewart lets the sad fall from grace of Xavier, a once noble mutant champion reduced to withering away from Alzheimers in an abandoned corn silo, sting with every scene with a quite optimism mixed with bitter defeat, fully aware of his life's failures. The supporting cast is quite strong as well. As cybernetic mercenary Donald Pierce, Boyd Holbrook gives off a natural menace mixed with a small amount of fanboyish charm whenever he confronts Logan. British comedian Stephen Merchant works as much needed comic relief as mutant assistant and tracker Caliban, though the film is smart enough not to force him to the foreground and he actually does quite well in dramatic scenes. Richard Grant's role as big bad Zander Rice is small, but he does quite well in the time he has. And of course, full acclaim should be given to Dafne Keen as X-23, who sells her entire character with very little dialogue and a large amount of body language. Score: 5 out of 5 The Script Logan's script, written by James Mangold, Scott Frank, and Micheal Green and based off a variety of storylines but largely Mark Millar's Old Man Logan, has far more in common with Westerns, noir films, and post-apocalyptic fiction like The Road than it does with CG-heavy romps like last year's mediocre X-Men: Apocalypse. The script does a marvelous effort of worldbuilding, giving the viewers just enough to understand the world, but not enough to answer all of their questions. The strength of the script is it's central focus on the story at hand. There's no sequel set-up or big mystery/twist. It's a road movie through and through, and the script's minimalism excels when it's focusing on building the dynamic between the central trio. It even works hard to sell it's emotions, and you will cry at some of the film's saddest scenes. For all my love of the script's grungy, Neo-Western feel, it struggles a bit at two points. One, the film has something of a slow start, but it fully hits stride about 20 minutes in, and the other is a very comic book turn so difficult to discuss that I won't spoil it here, but it has proven divisive among fans of the film. Score: 4.5 out of 5 The Direction Mangold's direction feels anything but formulaic, once more taking inspiration from westerns and noir films and creating some really colorful and well-done shots. In reality, Mangold deserves an immense amount of credit for the film's fight scenes, which finally showcase Wolverine in all of his (incredibly brutal) glory. Every fight in the film feels less like a choreographed battle and more like a brawl, with the tone being set in the opening scene, in which a drunken Logan slaughters a group of would-be carjackers. A particular highlight is a fight between Logan and the Reavers in a Las Vegas hotel and the film's last 30 minutes, a rare comic book film 3rd act that actually stays as strong as the rest of the film. Unlike 2013's The Wolverine, which was clearly victim of some level of interference, Mangold gets to make the film he wants to make. Score: 5 out of 5 Final Verdict I criticize the messy continuity of the X-Men films, but if it can give us great works like Legion, Deadpool, and Logan, Fox can keep it up. Logan is one of the best comic-book films since the Dark Knight and it's a career-best for everyone involved. Small-scale, brutal as all hell, and tragically sad without being manipulative, I doubt we'll see a lot of movies quite like this one. I can see why Stewart chose to bow out after this one. Score: 5 Oscar Nominations Wishlist: *Best Picture *Best Director: James Mangold *Best Adapted Screenplay *Best Actor: Hugh Jackman *Best Supporting Actor: Patrick Stewart *Best Supporting Actress: Dafne Keen Category:Blog posts Category:Reviews